boy. I did it for Edith's sake."

Tim, with face flushed and hands outstretched in protest, arose from
his chair and went to the bedside.

"But don't you see it's all a joke," he cried. "I can't take it.
Won't you believe me this time? There isn't any Edith!"

"I knew that long ago, Tim," Weston answered quietly. "But there may
be some day."

He turned his back to us.

"Please go," he said brusquely. "I want to rest. Don't stand over me
that way, Tim. Why, you look like little Colonel!"

* * * * * *

At the school-house door Tim halted suddenly.

"I'm going back, Mark," he whispered, "just for a minute. Weston will
think I'm a fraud and I want to tell him something. Now that the
others have left I may have a chance. Confound these kind-hearted
women that overrun the house! Why, a fellow couldn't say a word
without a dozen ears to hear it."

"I'll go back with you," said I.

We had fallen a few steps behind the others, but somehow they divined
our purpose and stopped, too.

"You needn't," said Tim. "I'll only be a minute."

"But I've something to tell you--a secret--and Mary----"

He was gone.

"I'll be back in a minute," he called. "Go on home."

He was lost in the darkness, and I started after him.

"Ain't you comin'?" cried Nanny Pulsifer.

"I must go back to Warden's," I answered.

"Then we'll go with you," said Mrs. Spiker firmly.

"Can't you go on home?" I said testily. "There's no use of your
troubling yourself further."

"Does you think we'll walk by that graveyard alone?" demanded the
tavern-keeper's wife.

"But there are no ghosts," I argued.

[Illustration: "But there are no ghosts," I argued.]

"We know that," returned Mrs. Pulsifer. "Everybody knows that, but
it's never made any difference."

"A graveyard is a graveyard even if there is no bodies in it," said
Mrs. Spiker, planting herself behind me so as to cut off further
retreat.

Tim must have caught some echoes of the argument on the spirit world,
for down the hill, through the darkness, came his call.

"Go on home, Mark--I'll be back in a minute."

I believed him, and I obeyed.

XV

Tim's minute? God keep me from another as long!

I had my pipe in my chair by the fire, and knocking the ashes out, I
went to the door, and with a hand to my ear listened for his footsteps.
Tim's minutes are long! Another pipe, and the clock on the mantel
marked nine. Still I smok